Last week, newspapers across the United States were plastered with a dire prognosis for Earth’s plants and animals. The United Nations’ first biodiversity assessment declared that humans were pushing 1 million species toward extinction. But beyond headlines, whether such a landmark report on biodiversity will leave a lasting mark on society or not remains to be seen. And what happens next may matter more than the report itself.

“The power of the report will only be known when we see the reflection of the report in action,” says Keith Tidball, an ecological anthropologist at Cornell University.

The U.N. report is the most extensi